Some fathers do ’ave ’em - Cruz Hewitt has a decent doubles partner at NSW Open
Here’s Lleyton now, sipping coffee, with a tub of yoghurt on the table, looking fit enough at the age of 44 to go another five chest-bumping, tub-thumping sets with David Nalbandian. He breaks into a broad, endearing and slightly bashful grin when talking about having a hit with his 16-year-old boy at a tournament he won four times in singles. Some fathers do ’ave ’em, and Cruz is a big lad, at 182cm, with a large if evolving game, and as long as he handles the potentially suffocating spotlight that accompanies such a fabulously famous surname – an intrusion that fades in time, by the way – he just may have something as a player. We’ll see.
The legendary Lleyton, who won the US Open doubles in 2000 with a tall glass of milk from Belarus called Max Mirnyi, is getting all sentimental about the forthcoming family fixture against Australia’s Hayden Jones and Pavle Marinkov. Lleyton is winding back the clock on Wednesday while his son tries to hit fast-forward. He’s as feisty and adrenalised, and as fond of fist pumps and c’mons as his old man, who still strokes a clean, smooth, penetrating ball with the commanding aura of a bloke who’s been there, done that, won this, won that, lifted most of the trophies and bought all the T-shirts.
Asked who’ll serve first, the honour bestowed upon a team’s strongest partner, like the most dangerous paceman getting the new ball in a cricket Test, Lleyton laughs and says, “He’ll want to. I might have to let him. I’ll look back when I’m a lot older and think this is pretty cool.”
Tuesday at Sydney Olympic Tennis Park featured a first-rounder between big, bad, bewildering Bernie Tomic and Japan’s Hayato Matsuoka. Tomic has played Roger Federer on Rod Laver Arena and Novak Djokovic on Wimbledon’s Centre Court, and he’s been primetime with Andy Roddick at the US Open’s Arthur Ashe Stadium, but now he’s having a whack with the world No.483 on Court 2 at Homebush. Nineteen spectators are in attendance at a tournament that is nirvana for a tennis lover. You’re so close to the action you could lean over the fence and tell Tomic to get his act together.
He loses the first game and shouts, “Can’t run!”. He goes down 2-0 and dispatches a racquet to be freshly strung. Which brings to mind a French Open match in which Tomic spent three losing sets talking to his strings. He looked at them constantly and posed questions. Why are you doing this? Why do you not feel right? What are you doing to me? You call yourself strings? Trailing 6-4 in Sydney, you could swear he’s going to retire. He soldiers on and plays one more lion-hearted point – then quits. Right on cue, his restrung racquet turns up.
He chats to people in the crowd for a good 15 minutes. Signs a couple of autographs. When he walks past some rubbish bins, I think perhaps he’ll toss his racquets away. The former world No.17 has become the world No.189. While slogging away on the Challenger circuit in places like Rwanda and India is potentially very Tin Cup, or Happy Gilmore 2, he isn’t making a heck of a lot of progress. You feel like sitting at the bar and putting bread in his jar and saying man, what are you doing here?
Hewitt hasn’t seen Tomic’s match. He’s gone up the road to get Cruz a sandwich and by the time he returns, Tomic has shaken hands and started talking to randoms in the crowd. “It’s a hard one – I don’t think anyone fully knows,” Hewitt says when asked why Tomic is still battling away. “I’m not sure if he doesn’t know what else to do, or he still feels he has some unfinished business. It’s a tough one, but you’ve got to take your hat off to him in terms of the places he’s gone to, and the tournaments that he’s been playing the last few years, compared to where he was at centre stage and playing the big names. He’s still going out there and having a crack. He doesn’t mind playing on backcourts. I spoke to him a couple of times this week and I don’t know what his plans are.”
Hewitt was Tomic’s Davis Cup captain until the mercurial athlete’s mercurial athlete went missing. “Oh, he was good,” Hewitt says of vintage Tomic. “I don’t know the actual reasons he lost his way. Whether it was the coaching structure around him … I was with him when he made the round of 16 at Wimbledon (in 2016). He ended up losing a tight one (8-6 in the fifth set to Frenchman Lucas Pouille). He could have made the quarter-finals there, he was at a career-high ranking of 17, from then he just didn’t kick on. People ask me about good Davis Cup players …”
Was Tomic a good Davis Cup player? “Bernie was as good as a lot of guys,” Hewitt says. “He did it his way. Watching a match you’re thinking, ‘How the hell is he going to win this?’ He always found a way to win against people he should beat, which in Davis Cup isn’t easy, right? You go out there and everyone expects you to win. You’re playing for your teammates and they’ve sort of already pencilled in a 1-0 start. I don’t remember too many he lost that he should have won. He didn’t beat the guys above him, but he was a really, really solid Davis Cup player.”
Tin Cup and Happy Gilmore 2 have happy endings. Tomic’s triumph will be the main draw at a major. “I think there’s a chance,” Hewitt says. “He’s made some Challenger finals. The biggest question I would have is back-to-back matches. Physically, in the heat, how does that go? If he gets the right draw and he’s able to take care of his first and second rounds, then come in fresh to the last round of qualifying, he’s still got the class. I’m not sure what his goals are or what he still wants to get out of the sport. Your ego takes a hit … but he’s still prepared to do it.”
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Cruz Hewitt recognises the first rule of doubles is to get yourself a decent partner – and the likeable young fella has struck the jackpot by convincing a savvy and enlightened ex-Wimbledon champion, world No.1 and Hall-of-Famer to join forces at the royally great old NSW Open. His Dad.